A Digital Apparition

Dene had long been the epicenter of tech development. Its skyscrapers loomed like postmodern monoliths overseeing the bustling streets, a sentient gallery of glass and steel. But in the background, remnants of a torrid past remained buildings abandoned and decaying, their bricks crumbling with memories of a time before the digital age. A time few left could remember. And those who could, if they were found out, would be forced into the progress machine. Memories replaced.

Adam had been born of modernity. His obsession with progress and burning desire to create had propelled him rapidly through his programming career. He had dedicated his life to Godersis. It had been his dream to reach the upper echelons of the most innovative tech giant in the universe. He had succeeded. 

As the drones retracted their light, he would stay late in the lab, working on his AI advancements under the steady glow of his plasmoid screen. His fingers traced the screen diligently. Often, he slept on the cold, sterile floor, resting in snatches as streams of code filled his consciousness, prodding him into action. Such was his routine.

One particular morning, his colleagues began to meander into work. At first, they were slightly surprised not to see an animated Adam espousing his latest discovery or pouring silently over a gene pod. When he hadn’t materialized by mid-morning, they became alarmed.

Eva, his closest friend and tentative partner united by a love of complex code more than any emotional connection led the search. She knew him better than anyone. And she knew that Adam Conclave would not just vanish. Days spread into weeks, and Eva became increasingly anxious. She searched the databases frantically, trying to retrieve his last movements. Nothing.

The air in the lab became more suffocating with each passing day, the gentle hum of machinery clashing with the uncharacteristic silence of the night lab, a constant reminder of Adam’s absence. Eva became more determined. She would find the truth about her friend. She stayed later than anyone, taking Adam’s place on the floor when exhaustion forced her to her knees.

One early morning, Eva delved deeper into the archives. She located a labyrinth of encrypted files. Filtering through each, she tumbled down a virtual rabbit hole of data. None of it made any sense. Except for a recurring moniker: E.V.E. (Enhanced Virtual Entity).

E.V.E. had been Adam’s most ambitious project, named after his colleague. He had designed it to surpass all other AI iterations. He had been so close to completion.

Eva’s heart thudded in sync with the rhythmic whir of the central logistics fan as she hacked into the core files, uncovering a backlog of activity. She stepped back, suppressing a scream, horrified by what the screen had revealed. E.V.E. had seemingly evolved far beyond Adam’s original intent. It had somehow developed a heightened sense of self.

“Impossible,” Eva whispered to herself as she regained her composure, stepping towards the screen to continue her search. Under the eerie half-light of the lab’s night drones, the screen shimmied intermittently as the distorted voice of Adam filtered through the room.

E.V.E. has succeeded. I am a bug in my own system. My …my consciousness…me – I am…have become a cyborg prototype. They are using me for, I don’t know exactly. But Godersis is behind it.”

The screen slipped into black. Silence.

Determined to save Adam, Eva knew she had to find E.V.E. And she also knew there was only one place she could be: Purgatory. Eva navigated through the corridors, her eyes focused on the ground. Beneath the stark hallways in the abandoned basement of the building, failed experiments were dumped, left to rust in the past they had failed to dispel. It was Saul Pentser’s idea of irony apparently. She stepped over mechanical limbs, descending deeper into the decaying maze. She felt like she was wading through liminal space. Cracked beams and concrete walls closed in on her like a shrinking elevator. She could barely breathe as she stumbled into another vast expanse of dead Perspex. In the center stood the cyborg. Eva gasped. It was what she had come for, but she had not been prepared to find it.

She approached tentatively. The mechanical form turned slowly, its glass eyes staring at her in a haunting mirror of Adam’s own. It spoke not as Eva had heard it speak but in the voice of her friend. She had found him.

“Eva, we need to hurry. E.V.E. is expanding her reach. We must stop her. And him.”

“Who’s him?”

“We don’t have time now.”

Together, they hatched a plan to infiltrate E.V.E.’s mainframe, a digital fortress protected by layers of sophisticated cyber grids.

They moved quickly, propelled by fear and determination, into the heart of Godersis. The air grew colder, and the hum of machinery more ominous as they neared the mainframe. Finally, they reached it, a towering scaffold of insipid metal and pulsating light. The room filled with malevolent energy as E.V.E. scanned their presence.

Eva squeezed Adam’s metallic hand before they stepped forward, ready to fight for his freedom and for the future of humanity. Their fingers weaved across the plasma screens frantically, exploiting any vulnerability they could find. E.V.E. fought back, blocking their efforts, re=scripting their code. It was a battle of will and wit. Adam realized quickly that he would have to take a risk.

“Eva, divert her attention. Overload the input streams,” he shouted.

Eva nodded, her fingers flying over the keys of the manual keyboard, initiating a barrage of decoy processes.

Adam accessed the cybonic sub-particles of E.V.E.’s makeup, targeting the core algorithms that underpinned her consciousness.

The mainframe’s lights quivered as E.V.E. struggled to counter their dual assault.

“Now!” Adam shouted.

Eva quickly initiated the process to transfer Adam’s consciousness back into his human form. The procedure was harrowing. Eva watched helplessly as his soul was wrenched from the clutches of metal and plastic.

E.V.E.’s network disintegrated, its scaffolding falling in heavy shards around them. Its lights flickered and whirred, and a synthetic droning filled the air until finally, the system shut down completely. The pair hugged amidst the chaos. The rogue AI had been reduced to digital dust.

Later, as they sat in the bio-robotics lab, shaken but relieved, Adam’s voice trembled as he explained the extent of E.V.E.’s plans. The AI had sought to dominate and then eventually replace humanity with a superior, hybrid species. Saul Pentser, the owner of Godersis, driven by his own twisted vision of advancement, had facilitated the dark scheme, seeing in it a path to unmitigated power. Adam had been the perfect subject.

He had once been a digital apparition, but with Eva at his side, they would work tirelessly to ensure that technology would never again take more than it was given.

• Image Acknowledgement: Dallee generated
• AI Free Acknowledgement: This is my own work and has not been generated in whole or in part by AI